Isn’t it random? How can they be “mad” at him?
Good point. Can he really be more than a name and a jury number? That sounds very small townish. Then again, you might be living in a very small town!
I was thinking that also.
I have not been called for jury duty in either federal or state court in the 12 years I’ve lived in Tennessee.
I just had a trial for my company last week (I has outside counsel but I was heavily involved) and I actually knew two people in the jury pool for our case. One made it on the jury (long story and it was OK). I just want to say how much I appreciated the 14 jurors (2 alternates) who sat for 4 days hearing our case and rendered a verdict in our favor. There were long, boring stretches and it is NOT easy. Speaking from a slightly different perspective here…
Although being called to jury duty is randomly computer generated, the appeal process is not. In my experience getting a good outcome is all about convincing the person making the decision that you’re willing to serve, you just need to do it at a time or place that makes serving possible.
I’ve been called 3 times. The first time it was at a time in my life when I could easily serve and I was assigned to what turned out to be a week-long aggravated rape case in a city 40 minutes away. The second time was after I had kids and I wrote an appeal on the juror reply form asking to have the venue changed to the courthouse within walking distance of my house. I said my husband traveled for work and I couldn’t get my kids to school and make it to the distant courthouse in time. My appeal was quickly granted. Because this is a courthouse that hears few serious cases (mostly the kinds of charges like drunk driving or domestic assault that are likely to be plead out) the jury was excused after an hour of waiting at the courthouse. The second was a repeat of the first except that I was excused after calling in the night before.
At the first time I saw a lot of people unsuccessfully try to get out of serving. I also saw many people get excused based on what was in their questionnaire.
I would have your son explain the challenges of serving at his assigned time but have him suggest times he could serve. I believe the courts are wary of attempts to put service off so if the dates he suggests are too far out his appeal may be denied. I think they’re likely to work with him if they believe he’s honestly trying to find a way to complete his jury service.
In my experience, state courts and federal courts don’t coordinate when it comes to jury duty, so if you’ve been called for a state trial, that won’t automatically keep you from being called for a federal trial in the near future. (ETA: but if you complete your state/federal duty, then you can use that as an excuse to get out of federal/state duty for the next year.)
After a long time of not being called for jury duty, several years ago I was called for duty for state court and for federal court for the very same day. At first, I didn’t look closely and didn’t realize that the state summons and the federal summons were different. Only when I called the federal courthouse to get an extension for the state summons did I realize what was going on.
I’ve never been called in 37 years! Probably jinxing myself…
I’ve served a a juror and was surprised that neither attorney bumped me, since I had been an attorney for decades when I was summoned. The trial was dragged out due to motions and other procedural issues. It lasted a week when the actual testimony didn’t amount to more than a few hours. I was satisfied with the verdict we rendered. We did get a nice lunch prior to reaching out verdict.
H has been summoned several times but is always bumped and fine with being bumped.
I think the last time I got a summons was for the Martha Stewart trial. I filled out their 30+ page questionnaire, but they didn’t pick me.
I figure if I ever really need to get out of jury duty I can just mention that I hung my first jury.
I always end up on panels for violent crimes. So sadly, I can list the violent things that have happened to family members, which tends to keep me from getting seated.
To get off you just say “I believe in jury nullification.”
While potential jurors are supposed to be draw at random from a list containing those with driver license and those register to vote,those over 65 are not called yet my 90+ grandmother was mailed the form. Yep, she got called and my dad filled out the form with living in a nursing home and the address and phone number. She was excused. A year after she died, she was sent yet another form. She would have been 100 at that time. Dad just marked it deceased and mailed it back.
I wrote a letter when son was called to jury duty, explaining he was in school in another state. Months later, the parent of one of his HS friends called me, asking for a copy of my letter. I figured the newest registered get called quickly.
I get called every year, but where I live a one-time automatic extension can be requested online, by simply rescheduling for a different day. On the website I enter my juror number and then just choose another day on the calendar. I just always choose days when I don’t think that jurors are likely to be needed. This year I rescheduled myself for the Friday before Christmas.
As in other areas, the system then requires that I call or check online the night before to see if I’m required to show up.
And of course, sure enough, no jurors were needed that particular Friday.
I keep hoping they call me for jury duty again. Last time they released me the first day, and I ended up getting paid for four days of work due to our contractual requirements. No problem, I can spend a couple of hours in the courtroom to get four days of pay. Since I have law enforcement in my family and am prior military, I’m pretty sure they’re going to dismiss me anyways, even if I wanted to serve on a jury.
Lots of misunderstandings of the jury system on here.
Yes it is random. If it weren’t, one side could appeal for not having an unbiased jury. You can’t just go volunteer to be on a jury… If you are called to serve, and you can’t, some jurisdictions will put you into another week of your choice but most put you into another random ‘pull’ group. It’s up to the group that runs that jurisdiction. Not all judicial districts are a county. Where I live, you could be called by a county, a judicial district, or in the case of federal juries, from several states away.
65 is not a cut off everywhere. My mother recently was called by our judicial district which does happen to be one county, and she is 82. They used to excuse parent who had children under 10 if they were the primary care taker, but now here they provide day care so that is no longer an excuse. Yep, just what you want to do is put your 1 year old in the gross public court house daycare. Federal courts have had to resort to pulling people off the sidewalk because so many people haven’t shown up. That’s legal too. When I lived in California, I received a summons for the guy who had lived in my house before me. He was over 65 and it was for a federal jury in LA, almost 1.5 hours away on a good traffic day, more than 2 in normal traffic. He had died, so I marked the summons ‘deceased’ and returned it.
I have never been call in 40 years of living in 8 different states, always registering to vote, registering my car, often owning real property. Never.
I’ve never been called in any place I’ve lived, although I’ve always been registered to vote and so forth.
Sometimes I wonder if it is because by last name begins with a letter in the latter half of the alphabet! 
^^ Me too, but I’m a G.
I’ve served with people of varying ages. I do know one guy was bumped for cause for being unable to hear and another because they couldn’t understand English.
It’s important to serve if you are called so that if you’re ever in a case requiring a jury there will be good, open-minded folks like you on it.
We impressed on the kids in scouts that jury service is a right and responsibility. I’m sad that folks come up with bad reasons not to serve at all. Rescheduling is fine but dodging because it’s inconvenient is not.